Saturday, November 29, 2014

Multilingual Education Related Resources

Dear Multilingual Education Friends,

Sometimes we come across beautiful resources awhile after they were published. Here are a few:

Common tongue: The impact of language on educational outcomes, a paper by Tarun Jain (2011) in which he explores the issue of language in relation to economic performance. He studies the impact that the reorganisation of Indian states has made on economic status on the district level in relation to the language spoken. He concludes: “After reorganization, historically minority language districts experience greater growth in educational achievement compared to previously majority language districts, indicating that reassignment could reverse the impact of history.”

Children’s Literature in Multilingual Classrooms: From multiliteracy to multimodality, a book by Jim Cummings (foreword), Christine Hélot, Raymonde Sneddon and Nicola Day. Even though it is not about India, it seems relevant, as the description states: “It looks specifically at how translation can support learning, at how dual language books enhance learning in both languages, and at making and reading books from a variety of cultural backgrounds and in a variety of languages. It provides much evidence for improved learning outcomes as well as children's social and personal development.”

Assessing early grade reading: The value and limits of ‘words per minute’, a paper written by Barbara Graham and Agatha van Ginkel. This research paper is interesting for those of us involved in grading and research as in the study also two minority language speaking groups were included. The conclusion is that “WPM is not a reliable comparative measure of reading development since linguistic and orthographic features can differ considerably and are likely to influence the reading acquisition process.”